Jupiters Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph (55 page)

Just suppose, I said to myself, that I crept out here at midnight, and hid. Would I be likely to see old Rajaram slip through the window with a syringe and inject honey into that photograph? Or would the Colonel appear furtively in his nightgown and shake ash into the tray? It was preposterous. I imagined myself devoting a lifetime to experiments with carbon-dating and isotope-tagging, infra-red cameras and laser beams to prove that the Colonel and the Brahmin were true or false. And never would I know any better than I knew already after only twenty-four hours, that it could not be in them to deceive me in that way. Or even if I showed them false today, what is to stop them being true tomorrow?

Let the ash pour, and the honey drip. What do they prove after all? That the world is full of marvels which I don't understand? I have known that for a long time. There are subtleties here to be penetrated, but not by scientific experiments on the composition of honey and the origins of ash.

Still, I thought, I shall go and see this Sai Baba. It would be something to be present at a miracle.

My friend introduced me to the more mundane aspects of life in Madras. I tasted again the strange pleasure to be had in visiting institutions created by the British in another era, and maintained by the Indians in their original form for their own use. There was squash and ginger beer at the Madras Cricket Club, for example, and there was still a faint but original odour of
memsahib
drifting in the air of Spencer's store. All of it, though, was transformed for me by the calm of the Colonel's garden and the aura of Rajaram. I was easy with the climate, hot as it was, and happy with the food. After four days I felt rested and secure, and the wounds of Penang seemed to have finally closed. I was ready to set off into India, like a ship well rigged and provisioned, with a rested crew, a good wind and nothing but fair weather ahead. The blow fell that morning. A telegram arrived to tell me that my stepfather had died suddenly and unexpectedly.

I wrestled with the problem for hours. Many times I had asked myself what I would do if my mother were to die while I was away. The answer was always: keep going. I was obsessed by the idea that to break the journey might somehow destroy it. But it had never occurred to me that it might be Bill, so much younger, who would die first. The very fact that I should have got the news in Madras, where every day planes took off that could get me to England, seemed significant. What if it had happened while I was on the
altiplano?
In my heart I knew I could not leave my mother alone at such a time.

I asked Rajaram, writing my question down on a scrap of paper:

yesterday my stepfather died. what should i do for my mother?

and he replied in writing too:

1
’
8 or 1
’
5 your profit income you may help her. It is bounden duty of human being if she helpless.

money is not the problem. i want to comfort her.

There is a doctor already to look after her.

but which way shall i go?

(We are gifted a
compa
ss
in our heart) your prayer will guide you, right direction; for your all success in life.

Following my compass, it took me thirteen hours to fly back to the place that I had spent three years travelling away from. I was sucked up by the silver tube and spilled out on London Airport. Within no time I was standing next to my mother at the crematorium chapel, as the remains of

her husband were consigned to the flames. I was so sickened by the soulless mechanics, the hideous insensitivity of the whole affair, that his loss did not strike home to me until weeks afterwards. With the feeling of India still strong in me, I felt I would rather be tossed out on a charnel ground for the vultures than be disposed of by remote control behind
I
nylon curtains in a gas oven, dispatched by the rounded insincerities of a mass destruction priest.

The flight back to Madras was tedious. Police searched the 747 at Tel Aviv and again at Teheran. I missed the connection at Bombay and had to spend a night there in the monsoon. Next day the plane was delayed at take-off. Engineers rooted about on the flight deck while we roasted in the cabin.

I sat next to a Professor at Madras University returning from a spell in Germany. He was good company, but the remark I treasured most was about the water in Frankfurt.

'We always boiled the tap water,' he said. 'It is polluted and quite unsafe to drink. Fortunately in Madras we don't have this problem. Our river water is quite pure.'

By coincidence, some ten days later the Bombay-Madras plane blew up, killing everyone on board.

Madras, when I got back there, felt like a different place. I was plagued by minor irritations and discomforts that I had not even noticed before, if indeed they had existed. I was bothered by the heat, the humidity and the mosquitoes. I felt weak and jet-lagged. My friend had long since left, and I imagined myself less welcome than I had been before. I found people ambiguous and inefficient, waggling their heads in the absurd way they do as though the gesture alone would make everything turn out fine.

Eating with my fingers was disagreeable, and forced me to wonder why I should feel so vulnerable sitting at table with sloppy food all over my right hand. I felt a craving for meat, thinking it might restore my morale, and I bought a chicken and asked the housekeeper to cook it.

It was a bad mistake. The Colonel liked meat, having been raised in an English tradition, but he was now convinced that it was wrong to do so. Rajaram would never touch it, though he sweetly ignored those who did. The housekeeper was thoroughly disapproving and I could see I had made the Colonel feel very guilty. What was worse, when the chicken appeared on the table in a small bowl, there seemed to be nothing left of it but the beak, neck, claws and ribs. I naturally assumed that the thrifty housekeeper was planning to stretch it over several meals, and in all innocence I asked in what way she planned to prepare the meat.

I thought Kali, the Goddess of Destruction, was going to leap at me from her eyes when the Colonel translated the message.

'She says the chicken is all there
’
said the Colonel. I was wise enough to keep quiet, but I thought I had better leave their house soon before I blundered into even deeper trouble. It was a classic example of the danger of flying between different worlds and cultures.

Obviously it was I who had changed, and not India, and I longed to feel the satisfaction and calm I had known before. Perhaps, I thought, I will find it in the temples as I ride south to Sri Lanka. There was one only fifty miles away at Kanchipuram. I said goodbye to the Colonel, feeling very grateful to him and miserable at having even doubted his hospitality. I feasted my eyes on Rajaram one last time and, receiving his tranquil farewell, I rode into India.

Riding the Temple Trail is like riding into a Black Hole. Everything rushes in, squeezing, condensing, more of everything than you ever thought possible. You have only to pronounce the names to know:

Ekamboreswara temple at Kanchipuram, Mahishisuramordhini cave at Mahabalipuram, Arunachala temple at Tiruvanamalai, Tiruchchirapalli and Brihadeeswarer temple at Thanjavur, more syllables per word than the Western tongue can roll round, more people per tourist than the eye can see, more distance per mile, more surprises per minute, more carvings per square yard. Everything in profusion and superfluity, and somewhere in the middle of this crush, they say, is calm. So find it!

Not easy. A sign points down a narrow street of shops and stalls, a milling confusion of people, animals, bicycles. The bazaar. Above the seething mass, appearing to rise right out of it, a towering wedge of masonry completely obliterated by carved figures, as though squeezed up and petrified by the pressure of the bazaar itself. The temple. What causes these people to compress themselves like this? I used to think, in my airy Western way, that it was because there were so many of them. Every question about India was so easily answered by 'over-population'. Now I remember the insane knots of people round the counter of an otherwise empty shop or post office, the steady pressure of the man behind me in the queue, forcing his body against mine, drawn by a mindless magnetism. I call it insane because my sanity flourishes with space and distance. India seems like a giant condenser, everybody streaming towards the centre to fuse.

I stop the bike to consider whether I can really hope to penetrate the bazaar. A ring of bodies forms instantly, and begins to thicken. The crowd is crystallizing around me. I have to hold tight for a second, but there is no danger. I was well
trained in
South America, and the crowd here is just a degree or two more concentrated. I see that it is only partly curiosity that draws them, because much of the time they are not even looking at me. It's more that I might mean an opportunity, a lucky chance. The instinct is to get close to the action, that's all.

I'm busy making contact, making sure they know I am a human being. I take off my helmet and talk, looking out over the sea of faces with the confidence of a superstar. There are easily a hundred people gathered round me, but they are short and I can look down on them.

Where is the temple? Can I go through this way? A man in the foreground answers.

'Yes, you can go. You are coming from? Your native place is?'

A stream of questions, and as I answer I am trying to cultivate humility, because it would be so easy to think I could play games with these people. I try to remember that from their point of view, as well as being fascinating I might also seem exceptionally foolish.

I kick the engine over and the crowd opens before me. At a walking pace I ride through to the outer gate of the temple. It is not a good way to arrive. There is no logical place to park a bike, and it looks very vulnerable. I am hot and absurdly overdressed in boots and jeans, and I have to carry the jacket and helmet, because there is nowhere to leave them. On top of that, a camera and a long lens.

I feel like a target, not a person. And here come the kids.

'Hello Sir, what is your name? Where you are coming from? You are going? I am collecting coins. You are having coins from your country? I am also collecting stamps. You are having? Give me one rupee.'

And then the man with the sandals; and the postcards, and the beads, as I walk towards the inner gate. On the right of the gate is a sanctuary like a cave, and in the doorway stands an extraordinary figure of a man with streaks of coloured paint over his forehead and an expression of such solemnity that I want to laugh. He is making weird gestures with his arms, and all I can think is that he looks like a fake, like Charlton Heston acting a crazy Brahmin for Cecil B. de Mille. He is beckoning to me; any second I expect to hear:

'Hey, sport! Over here! Listen! Your soul's slipping, feller. Don't miss Siva's lingam, sport. Maybe your last chance this lifetime. See the greasy ghee pour down over the supreme prick. Hurry! The Wisdom of the Orient awaits you.'

The kids are still on my trail, and I have been joined by a young man who simply walks alongside me with an ineffably sweet smile, so sweet and sad that I am sure he has been practising it for years. He asks for nothing, but as the collectors of coins, stamps, ball-pens and rupees launch yet another
assault
, he says 'Ah, those boys,' again and again.

Inside the gate the unofficial soliciting slackens off, the Wistful Smiler keeps his distance (what does he want?) and I wander about looking for inspiration. Under an enormous slab of stone supported by hundreds of carved pillars, a small family is cooking in a brass pot over a fire. A bearded man approaches, making semaphore movements with his arms. He stares hotly into the middle of my skull, and then turns away as if he's got the message. I have not got the message. My eyes are grabbing at everything, but I still don't know what I'm doing here. Either this whole gigantic affair is a fraud, or some one will have to come and tell me the truth.

Looking for the heart of the temple, I find a cash desk with a man sitting behind bars. There's a board up with various prices: 30 paise, 75 paise, 1 rupee 25,2 rupees 50, but the explanation is printed in Tamil. Eventually I discover that this does not apply to me. As a non-Hindu I am a prohibited person; but a young man takes my arm and says 'Come. I will show you.' As I hesitate, he says: T am not a guide. I am a priest.'

He draws me round a labyrinth of colonnaded passages, rattling away. When I listen closely I realize he is speaking English, but the syllables are colliding and leap-frogging over each other. Then we come to the Mango

Tree. Partitions have been built to shield it from any casual eye, and I am led inside where a loquacious old gentleman takes over.

The Mango Tree, he says, is probably three thousand years old and has four branches. Each branch bears a different quality of fruit: bitter and sweet, sour and savoury. He walks me round the tree at a fair trot.

'And now,' he says grandly, arms outstretched, 'You can offer something to be shared among these friends.'

The friends, I see, include the Priest and the Wistful Smiler.

'Ten rupees is the least you can offer.'

I give two, with bad grace, and hurry off. As I emerge from the temple, the Priest, who has been keeping up with me, says
I
also collecting coins . . .'

But the bike is untouched, and though the kids greet me in even greater numbers, I am able to keep my temper with them and even clown a bit, and all I lose is my ball pen. The Wistful Smiler smiles on me again, in the bazaar, and I have learned to do it differently next time. Anyway, the truth is waiting for me next day on the road at Chingleput.

On the main road at Chingleput is a petrol and diesel station, and on the opposite side of the road, a wooden tea house. Trucks, buses and cars stop here, and it is a busy area. One man has put himself in charge of it. How he has done so, I don't know, but there is no doubt, as I watch him over a cup of milk tea, that he is in command.

He is a handsome, powerfully-built man in middle age with iron grey hair close cropped on a strong head. His face is particularly striking; it has the intelligence and flair of a statesman or a soldier, lines deeply etched and showing great force and passion, even, I would say, genius.

Both his legs are cut off halfway along the thigh, and he sits on the stumps on a little wooden trolley, a couple of inches off the ground. He has leather pads on his hands to push himself along. It seems to me that he has all the energy and conviction it takes to run a country or command an army, and he has put it into being a crippled beggar. He skates back and forth across the tarmac with immense skill, shouting his demands, roaring with laughter when he is refused, slapping his stumps with mirth and defying fate with every gesture. There is not a drop of pathos or self-pity in him anywhere. He is a blaze of vitality. When he holds out his hand to me, and I hesitate, he grunts with impatience, laughs, and scoots off to the next arrival. There is no question that it was my loss, not his.

There is no one in sight who could even begin to challenge his authority, and he is the best example I have ever seen of the power of the human spirit to impose itself over fate. Is it pure coincidence, then, that I should see, the next day, another man who achieved as much and in a quite different way?